July 6, 2012

He also said: "I believe freedom is important for peace and I believe one aspect of freedom is people to be free from disease," which reminds me of something the Solicitor General, Donald B. Verrilli Jr., argued to the Supreme Court about the health care law:

“There will be millions of people with chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease... and as a result of the health care that they will get, they will be unshackled from the disabilities that those diseases put on them and have the opportunity to enjoy the blessings of liberty.”

46 comments:

W. has done much good in Africa, including helping to create the South Sudanese government. On liberty versus equality, Hayek quotes Tocqueville and I think might help to clarify something on these lines:

"Nobody saw more clearly than Tocqueville that dmeocracy as an essentially individualist institution stood in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism:

'Democracy extends the sphere of freedom,' he said in 1848; 'socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude" (Hayek and Tocqueville quoted in Hayek, Road to Serfdom, 77).

"“There will be millions of people with chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease... and as a result of the health care that they will get, they will be unshackled from the disabilities that those diseases put on them and have the opportunity to enjoy the blessings of liberty.”

No, not exactly.

Some will get care, no doubt.

But demand will increase by 20% or more (for which Obama-Care astutely provides a 0% increase in providers); wait times and costs (Quick intelligence test for liberals: What happens when demand increases but supply remains constant [or even diminishes]?) will increase.

And, on the back end, federal deficits increase, taxes increase, national debt increases; we *might* be healthier, but we and our children and grandchildren will be enslaved to paying off the debts it creates.

Bush is promoting charity. The Democrats are pushing compulsion. Most diabetics are type 2 diabetics which can be prevented or brought under control by the patient if they are willing to do what it takes such as losing weight, eating low carb diets and. exercising. Same with HIV, it can be avoided for the most part as well.

Relax, Paul. I think W is referring to the fact that we in the free, capitalist west have used some of our abilities to advance science and medicine to the point that certain diseases are controllable. Humans can reduce and avoid communicable diseases like malaria and cholera and dengue if certain steps are taken. It's not socialist to promote a society that can eradicate communicable disease through better sanitatian or draining mosquito swamps.

That's different than Verilli's reference to diabetes or heart disease, ailments that afflict us here because we've eradicated the kinds of diseases that kill millions much younger in Africa.

Government in the US actually does a few things well, one of which, generally speaking, is sanitation and clean water.

“There will be millions of people with chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease... and as a result of the health care that they will get, they will be unshackled from the disabilities that those diseases put on them and have the opportunity to enjoy the blessings of liberty.”

of course this will be true even if Obamacare is repealed as people with pre-existing conditions have had the opportunity to get covered. In fact, closing this window will lead to a better outcome than leaving it open.

I question the philanthropy that says either America is doing fine so all the wealthy do-gooder money must go to foreign countries. Or that America is hurting, but Africa and Haiti are hurting worse therefore wealthy American do-gooders money and "free doctors care" must go to other nations needy instead of here.

Why not ask doctors that charge full fee for services in America to help fund their "generous and noble work with overpopulated Somalis in refugee camps" to scale back their exorbitant US pay...or work clinics here on what they get from all the US dollars they grab.

And why is it nobler for Bill Gates and Buffett to spend their loot in Africa vs on US Indian reservations, inner cities, or the jobless with no health benefits and hope in America??

Bush, Bono, Theresa Kerry, Sean Penn and Madonna and Oprah all want to focus on Africa? My, how special of them!

Verrilli's statement presupposes that the healthcare offered under the new act will be more excellent than it would have been otherwise. That might be a stretch, given the track record we can see of other Federal endeavors...

"And why is it nobler for Bill Gates and Buffett to spend their loot in Africa vs on US Indian reservations, inner cities, or the jobless with no health benefits and hope in America?? "

Because it doesn't work. We have given billions to our poor to no good effect. Time to punish the rest of the world.

What they can do is create small businesses in inner cities, etc., training people local to the area, gradually hand-off control to those with proven managerial skills, with an option of employees ultimately buying out the business.

lemondog said... "And why is it nobler for Bill Gates and Buffett to spend their loot in Africa vs on US Indian reservations, inner cities, or the jobless with no health benefits and hope in America?? "

Because it doesn't work. We have given billions to our poor to no good effect. Time to punish the rest of the world.

What they can do is create small businesses in inner cities, etc., training people local to the area, gradually hand-off control to those with proven managerial skills, with an option of employees ultimately buying out the business.

Guess how much non military money has been spent on Africa since the 50s.Just make up a figure.Got the figure in your head?

"Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University, notes former president Jimmy Carter ...... is now held high esteem by many for his work in promoting democracy and eradicating guinea worm disease."

By some maybe, but not by those of us who wish he keep his big, toothy mouth shut. Stick a cardigan in it.

That's not a bad sentiment. I would, however, advise identifying and mitigating causes rather than treating symptoms. The latter is surely more profitable, but it does not offer a sustainable improvement in the human condition.

President Bush seems to be a decent and sincere person. However, his equivocation of political freedom with "freedom from disease" is emblematic of his anti-conceptual mentality, and a significant reason why his presidency was a failure. This is the mentality that enabled Medicare Part D, "war" fought gently, so as not to offend the locals (the consequences to the American soldiers be damned), and bailouts of investment banks.

At times, I wish he had lost to Gore or Kerry, so that it would be more clear that statism is responsible for our current fiscal and foreign policy predicaments. Bush shared most of their fundamental convictions, and thereby lead us very far along this path, but was still labelled as a "capitalist" by our equally conceptually addled intelligentsia. He was anything but.

Freedom from disease is surely a worthy objective. But the trick is, as always, matiching desirable social ends with the most effecitve means of achieving them. That's where Verrilli's argument goes astray.

As for W, he was and is an admirable and thoroughly decent fellow, even if he flubbed some major issues as president.

One way to keep medical costs down is limiting payouts on lawsuits. Finland's top payout is 20 g. If a cop shoots your husband by accident you'd get 20 g tops. I imagine litigation costs are low in places like Zambia? In Finland they're high and the payouts are miniscule.

May I remind all Obamacare lovers who are eying all the care diabetics and those with heart disease are not (!) getting here in the States to google "postcode lottery health UK" to see how the NHS is doing.

Sample quotes: The percentage of patients receiving nine key checks on their diabetes control - including for kidney damage, cholesterol and weight - varied from 60 to 70 per cent in Norfolk and parts of Yorkshire to zero to around 40 per cent in places like Cornwall, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire.

Barbara Young, chief executive of Diabetes UK, said the charity was "seriously concerned".

"This demonstrates that the NHS is failing to provide universally high quality care across the country and shows that diabetes care is still a postcode lottery," she said.

Different areas of the country receive different health benefits and if you draw the short straw by living in the wrong postcode (zip code) for your particular disease -- well, rots of ruck, old chap.

I was tipped off about the "PCL" by a friend who is a NHS nurse in London.

I know some diabetics -- how exactly are they being shortchanged in their care? How will monitoring their blood sugar unshackle them from their disability under Obamacare any differently than they can do now? The lawyer was not well informed about medicine, and typically, as Obama did previously, picks some disease about which they are grossly ignorant as a emotional tool to manipulate. Certainly not to inform and educate. Who would want to separate a diabetic from his $4 Metformin?